How Black Friday Loyalty Programs Rip Off Shoppers
A shopper’s loyalty is valuable to retailers, but its benefit to the shopper is questionable – especially on Black Friday.
By Lee Hepner, Senior Legal Counsel, American Economic Liberties Project; Stephanie T. Nguyen, Senior Fellow, Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator; and Sophie Sahaf, Senior Fellow, Protect Borrowers
Black Friday, a term coined in the 1960s, was once a quintessential and day-long display of American shopping – but has now degraded into a month-long series of events aimed at separating shoppers from their money. Twenty years ago, Black Friday gave way to Cyber Monday, a term coined by the National Retail Federation to capitalize on a post-Thanksgiving bump in online shopping. Not content with leaving uncaptured dollars on the table, Cyber Monday evolved into Cyber Week. Somewhere along the way, retailers started picking up on “Grey Thursday” to attract shoppers too eager to wait for the morning.
With online retail sales expected to reach over $310 billion in 2025, a long-standing fixture of American consumer culture is fading, replaced with a full season of “discounts” that tend to beg whether a good deal is anything more than a targeted ad. And, as discounts give way to loyalty programs – with various strings attached – shoppers may find it hard to tell whether a good deal is a deal at all.
For corporations, loyalty programs aim to retain valuable customers with repeat business. From groceries to airlines to beauty, loyalty programs have long been marketed as a win-win: a way for people to save money and for companies to reward repeat customers. Today, many loyalty programs have devolved into a lucrative way to make profits and extract value away from consumers. And market research signals that the loyalty market is forecasted to grow amid the backdrop of AI, gamification and digital wallets.
Providing your credit card information to participate in a discount offer is now accompanied with a nudge to download an app or sign up for a loyalty program. Roughly three in four 16-34 year-olds plan to use loyalty points for their holiday shopping. Nearly as many say “they’re more likely to join new loyalty programs during peak [holiday] season”1 as these rewards and discounts can “help alleviate the financial stress of shopping today,” the CEO of a loyalty and engagement software company explained in a post titled, fittingly, “Why Loyalty, Not Discounts, Will Define Black Friday Winners.”
A shopper’s loyalty is valuable to retailers, but its benefit to the shopper is questionable – especially on Black Friday, where personalized pricing and opaque, sometimes misleading tactics have replaced any sense of a straightforward deal. Don’t just take it from us. Descriptions of real harms associated with loyalty programs can be found across the internet – including Reddit threads, consumer forums, consumer complaint portals, and comment sections of news articles. Here, we capture what people are saying in their own words.2
Here’s what we saw, with specific examples below:
Some people say that without enrolling in a loyalty program, they cannot afford the cost of items.
Some people report degradation of points and shrinking rewards.
Some people pay higher prices.
Some people face unwanted enrollments and strings attached.
Some people experience different prices from shelf to checkout.
1. Some people say that without enrolling in a loyalty program, they cannot afford the cost of items.
For many shoppers, loyalty programs no longer feel optional. Some people say they must enroll just to access reasonable prices or basic discounts. What begins as a perk for frequent customers has become a pay-to-play system – one that blurs the line between reward and requirement.
“If it wasn’t for my airline miles, I could not afford to visit my daughter and grandchildren who live abroad.”
“…usually you have to sign up [for grocery programs] anyway just to avoid paying a premium with their ‘regular’ price.”
“Millions of shoppers are being forced to pay higher prices just because they can’t sign up for loyalty schemes at major UK supermarkets and retailers. Is that fair?”
2. Some people report degradation of points and shrinking rewards.
Even after joining a loyalty program, people can find that the promised savings don’t hold up: point values drop, redemption thresholds rise, and rules change with little or no notice. What once seemed like a transparent way to earn rewards turns into a moving target, where loyalty loses value over time.
“When I attempted to use money + miles [to purchase a flight], my points were devalued down by more than half, and only worth $2400.”
“Push the confirm button [to buy a flight] and says website having problems. Try again this time 10000 points and another $728.”
“For years…I could amass enough points to get an item for free. Now, [Amazon Prime] only lets me apply a portion of my accrued points to any purchase - no free items.”
3. Some people pay higher prices.
In some cases, paying customers may face sudden price hikes or faulty systems with inadequate recourse. For example, shoppers buy points to book a flight or make a purchase, but when they go to check out, the goalposts move — the price jumps, and their points suddenly fall short. In addition, when deals are not honored due to technical glitch or otherwise, shoppers are not given a chance to recoup advertised savings.
“Transferred 16k points to @AirCanada for an award flight and the booking errored out at purchase. Now the award is 182% more expensive and I’ve got orphaned Aeroplan points.”
“Worse than manipulating the prices is [charging] MORE for using the app than if you didn’t.”
“Signed up for the Pavilions [store] card and a few months [later] discovered the price of my favorite items increased dramatically.”
4. Some people face unwanted enrollments and strings attached.
Some people agree to sign up for a “membership card” or join “a loyalty program” are then required to download an app. Some encounter shifting terms that limit the use of their loyalty points. More significantly, some learn they’ve been enrolled in a credit card they never wanted.
“It wasn’t immediately clear that the ‘Kohl’s Card’ I was being offered was not just a store membership. I did not realize until after the transaction was complete that I ha[d] signed up for a credit card.”
“Their loyalty points do not make logical sense. [...] apparently BAS wants you spending those points within certain windows to coincide with seasonal inventories. I get it but from a consumer standpoint their loyalty program is not very clear and wish they’d do without it.”
“@Sephora y the fu*** customers aren’t informed if I don’t purchase after 6 mos my acct is cancelled and all my points removed? #bait and switch! I have now lost over 1200 points and no record of colours and purchases.”
“After entering my Kroger card, I assumed the discount would automatically apply–but the cashier informed me I needed to use the Kroger app to activate the sale.”
“I tell her I don’t want the loyalty rewards program. She refused to sell me the product. [...] I’m sorry, I don’t want your stupid loyalty card if [ ] I have no intention of shopping more than once every 3 years.”
5. Some people experience different prices from shelf to checkout.
Even when people try to redeem the rewards they’ve earned, the system can offer a different price from the shelf to checkout. Coupons disappear at checkout, online redemptions fail to process, and customer service offers no real path to resolution.
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“I just went in and my receipt said $113. I had about $27 in coupons and $7.25 in my [Dollar General card cash back]. None of my coupons took off. The girl said […] coupons are not being honored […] yet I literally wanted to refund my entire order but I needed the items I got.”
“It is a bit of a bait and switch move… Offer ‘digital coupons’ then have them disappear or have an error when you sign in.”
“‘I just decided I would spot check some prices on things that I bought [on sale],’ said [Susan] Alterman.
“She reached out to NBC 5 Responds with what she found.
“Alterman snapped photos of the shelf prices on a couple of bags of chips at $3.24 and 3.26 each. She said each rang up for $3.68 at the register. Alterman took a photo of the $2.98 shelf price for loaf of bread. Alterman said it scanned for $3.24 at the checkout counter.
“Alterman said she pointed out the discrepancy to an associate who made a price adjustment so Alterman paid the lower price. The experience, she said, added up to a lesson in paying attention at the checkout.
“‘These prices I caught were just one percent. Forty cents here, 40 cents there, but where does it stop?’ asked Alterman.”
“‘Almost every single time I go in the store, the listed price of an item [on sale] is NOT what rings up at the register,’ Belpre resident Allison Hadfield noted in one of three complaints she and her husband, Derek, filed against their local Kroger store, according to Consumer Reports.
“Shopper Elizabeth Giovanni also submitted several complaints to her local Kroger store in Millington, Tennessee. In one case, she said an entire dairy case with cheese had expired [sale price] signs.
“‘I’ve recently stopped shopping there because of their lack of accountability and willingness to change the prices when they’re in the wrong,’ she said in an email to CBS MoneyWatch.”
Meaning the Black Friday-Cyber Monday weekend.
These excerpts aren’t meant to be exhaustive of all themes, a scientific sample or a representative survey. It’s a starting point for anyone who wants to understand how modern loyalty programs conceal tangible harms.